New Member E53 Owner
 

Good day people! I've been reading this forum for quite some time now. I've recently been gifted a 2001 4.4i E53 Black/Black comfort seats 192k miles (Black Betty 3). I love the vehicle, especially since it's free!:D

Got the car in NYC, it's been an NYC car all it's life. Previous owner was a female that only wanted to drive a BMW for the name. She drove it regularly from the city to school upstate. She traded it in for a malibu :dunno:. I'm a dealer, my brother works at a the dealership she traded it into and gifted it to me. I had been driving his 2013 X5 5.0i, which was a blast, so I gladly accepted.

I hadn't known what I gotten myself into, done my own checks on fluids, changed the spark plugs, added some lucas synthetic oil and gas treatment and got on the road to Georgia! I got on the road and all went well, until I switched into sport mode and overtook a slow moving car and the i85 and Black Betty slowed to a crawl 132 miles away from home. "Engine Failsafe Mode" popped up on the dash, could't go over 25 MPH. The few mechanics I could make it to in SC told me it could be huge or tiny problems. Got a code for the cam shaft position sensors, changed those on the spot to no avail. Eventually, I called AAA and got it towed home the rest of the way.

So I'm stuck at a cross roads, do I keep the vehicle do an engine swap, or count my losses on a free car (absolutely none) and sell it for parts as I've seen '06 4.6i's for sale around $3500 low miles in the auction? My intentions for her were to customize it to my liking and use her to tow my cars home from auctions out of state. Is that possible or far-fetched thinking?

Thanks alot for all the information you guys share on this forum! A true wealth of knowledge here. Nice to meet ya!

Welcome!

Does the engine run at all?

Thanks for the warm welcome BCredliner!

The engine does run a bit, I just took a video, looking for a way to upload it now.
Basically the engine starts and revs between 0 & 1500 all on it's own. Then if you don't gas it, it dies.

I'd take the engine apart and see what happened. Sounds like a sensor failure or a big vacuum leak. Scan it with an ODBII reader if possible and let us know if you find any codes— that might clue us in on what happened with your engine.

A local Indy mentored that it sounds like a vacuum leak but couldn't find it. I've got the following codes, the thing is I'm hesitant to change parts and turns out the engine is gone.:

82-drive by wire throttle position montering
71-camshaft position sensor cycle 1-3
72- cycle 5-8
8c-map control thermastat circut control
22-cam shaft vanos control cucle 5-8
62-evap emmission systum purge valve
73 air mass sensor

Problem is, I don't have funds to waste but I would like to get her running. Would a swap or repair seem best?

Sounds like you don't do your own repair work, correct?

Correct, I don't, but I am a DIYer. I do small repairs & big ones as long as there's a video on youtube.

Changing the sensors are basically plug and play, within my scope of understanding. But I was concerned it was a timing chain guide problem.

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There are no 06 4.6is from BMW. I bet you have a transmission problem since the vehicle went into failsafe mode when you put the X5 in sport model. With the miles on the X5 you may want to move on before putting money into this vehicle. If your a DIYer then this would be the only case that I would recommend keeping it and making it what you want.

Thanks for your input, I'll post a few videos of it running so you guys can send suggestions. I'll be towing it to the dealer this week to finally get a diagnosis on the engine, I need to know what the problem is.

Hm, looks like your throttle body might have called it quits— that alone can throw you into engine failsafe. I'd start with that and move on to the other sensors afterwards.

Sounds good. I'll order that and the MAF sensor tomorrow.

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Yeah that sounds like a good starting point since it died suddenly while driving on the highway. There have been a number of X5 v8 that have exhibited failure with the TB.

I think you are about to make one of the classic DIYer mistakes. The most costly DIY approach to fixing a problem is buying parts until you find the one that is the problem. I would certainly do more troubleshooting.

If it runs and sounds normal other than missing I would clear the codes and see what returns.

You could try cleaning the MAF with MAF sensor cleaner first. When a MAF is bad sometimes it causes a roaring sound, engine runs rough and engine won't rev properly. However, since you don't know how many miles on the MAF it is not unreasonable to purchase a new one since they do have a life cycle of about 60,000 miles. Doesn't sound like vacuum leak to me but to others it might.

Best way to check for vacuum leak is a smoke test but spraying carb cleaner around potential vacuum leak areas such as intake manifold is another way to find vacuum leak. The carb cleaner will cause the idle to increase when you spray the vacuum leak.

I've tried the MAF cleaner to no avail. I haven't tried to find the vacuum leak as yet, doing that today. Here's a video that I took of the vehicle running. My intention was to check on the timing chain guides to make sure the timing chain wasn't the issue, spraying oil all over the place. I'm willing to make repairs to get it running, I just need a starting point. So I'll do the vacuum leak test BCREDLINER suggested and go from there. For full disclosure, here's the list of things I've done.

Changed one of the CAM sensors, it still ran the same.
Cleaned the MAF sensor, the same.

Video Link:
https://vimeo.com/219400632

Sounds like timing guides to me. Here's an example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUzNRcD5RRk

I would certainly not drive it and would not run the engine. I suggest pulling the lower oil pan and check for debris. My be some by just draining the oil be big pieces will stay in the pan.

Just drained the oil and changed the filter. Saw no debris, taking off the oil pan tomorrow evening.

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